How does it work?

What is a DNS for?

Your website is found on a server identified by an IP address. To access your website's data, visitors therefore have to obtain this IP address. However, it is the domain name rather than the IP address that they are actually familiar with. DNS aims to translate this domain name into an IP address: this is called DNS resolution.

When the visitor types the domain name in their browser, a request is sent to the DNS server, which returns the server's IP address.

The browser then communicates with the server directly to return the page data.

Potential problems with classic DNS

Your DNS records are usually stored in a single location: i.e. the physical location of the DNS server.

High latency:

If visitors happen to be situated far from this location, sending information back and forth, which is necessary for DNS resolution, takes much longer.

Unavailability:

If the DNS server becomes unavailable, the “domain - > web server IP” conversion is no longer guaranteed. As a result, your visitors can no longer access the site and your search engine ranking will suffer.

How does Anycast DNS solve these problems?

Anycast DNS automatically duplicates the DNS records across the OVH global network, in 20 points of presence around the world.(See the list).

So the DNS records are now present in the entire world, as close as possible to potential visitors.

The IP Anycast then redirects visitors to the DNS server physically closest to them. Even if they are in Tokyo, visitors will see their requests answered in record time.

If one of DNS servers suddenly became unavailable, visitors would automatically be redirected to the second nearest server.

So your vistors are guaranteed optimal response time and accessibility to your website!